Three Challenges in One

Happy Saturday everyone!  I bookmarked quite a few card challenges that I wanted to do this week and I managed to combine three of them on this one card.

Here are the challenges I joined:

I am so happy that I finally got to play along with Paulina's 10 Minute Craft Dash.  Since Simon Says Stamp's theme was Patriotic I knew that my color scheme would be red, white and blue.  I decided to use Laurie's card for the Muse challenge as my sketch.  That made it much easier to decide on what supplies to pull out.

Here's what I laid out to use:

 Yes, I already had some stars die cut so that certainly saved time.  For my base I thought I'd use either of the Guidelines papers or just plain white.  As you can see I decided on Guide Lines II grid paper.  I liked the look of the circles with the stars.

  Here's my time.  I swear I thought I'd run out of time just trying to pull the backing off of the glitter tape!  I really need to play the 10 minute challenge all the time.  It forces me to just create a card and not spend too much time over-thinking it.

 
 All supplies from Papertrey Ink unless stated.

Stamps:   Star Prints, 2012 Birthday Tags
Paper:   Guide Lines II grid, white
Ink:   Pure Poppy, Blue Breeze (kaleidacolor)
Other:  glitter tape (american crafts), Seeing Stars dies

I'm Still Here

Hi all!  It's been a long time since I've posted anything here.  It was an unplanned blog break, but a much needed one for sure.  Once I started my new job things got really busy with the end of the school year activities as well.  As soon as school was out we headed out of town to a wonderful beach vacation in North Carolina.

Since I'm settled back into the home routine I just had to play along with Stephanie's first Clearly Besotted challenge.  I just love her stamps.

I chose to keep things really simple by making a one layer card.  Gotta ease back into stamping:)  I stamped the leaves and then used a marker to add some shading.  I remembered seeing Debby Hughes do that on one of her cards.  Love that look.  After stamping the sentiment I added a few epoxy stickers and voila -- done.  Can't wait to make more of these to have on hand.

I'm so glad I didn't miss out on the chance to join this challenge.  Making this simple card has really helped to jump start my creativity again.  I may not get a lot posted, but I'll definitely be back to making cards again.


Have a great weekend,





Stamps:   Leafy Accents, It's Your Birthday
Paper:   White
Ink:   Certainly Celery (SU), Black (memento)
Other:  peeled paint distress marker, gold gel pen, epoxy stickers (recollections)

For Your Inspiration #45

When I saw the photo for the newest FYI challenge I knew I wanted to use my new Boutique Borders:  Father set from Papertrey.  I kept it really simple with some spiral clips and a great piece of patterned paper from Colorbok that I've had for far too long.

I stamped the scrolled frame in Fresh Snow Ink and the sentiment in Dark Chocolate.  Then I decided to highlight the open parts of the sentiment in white using my white distress marker.  I really looks much cooler in real life.

Here's the inspiration photo for this challenge:

I hope you'll play along with us at For Your Inspiration.  You have until Wednesday, May 15th to link up your card or project based on the photo.

Please take a look at what the rest of the incredible DT created for this challenge.  Links are on my sidebar.

I'm also entering this into the current Simon Says Stamp challenge:  Happy Mail.




 
 All supplies from Papertrey Ink unless stated.

Stamps:   Boutique Borders:  Father
Paper:   Kraft, Colorbok Earthtones pp
Ink:   Fresh Snow, Dark Chocolate
Other:  Boutique Borders:  Father die, spiral clips, Picket Fence distress marker (ranger)

Destination

A quick post for the travel / cityscape challenge at Simon Says Stamp:

I started a new job today and I'm wiped out after 8 1/2 hours of orientation.  After working from home for nearly six years I've got a big routine change going on right now.  Looking forward to new things.

Gonna go put my feet up.




 
 All supplies from Papertrey Ink unless stated.

Stamps:  Destination, Get to the Point
Paper:  Ocean Tides, Fine Linen, Cream
Ink:  Ocean Tides, black (memento), Haystack (palette)
Other:  Get to the Point arrow die

April Cards Blog Challenge

It's my first time playing along with the CARDS blog challenge.  When I saw this color combo I knew that I had these colored scraps lying on my craft table.  I mentioned a few posts ago that I had been making cards from all the scraps and die cuts that were strewn about my desk.  Here's another one that uses those:

Everything except the card base was already in my pile.  Well, the i, heart and u were not yet cut but the pink scrap was there.  I always save the little pieces from the Quatrefoil die, intending to use them *someday*.  When I first bought the Decorative Tile folders I ran some panels through my cuttlebug to see what they looked like.  They just sat there with everything else and I'm so glad I can put one to use.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!





 

Paper:  Pretty In Pink (SU), Garden Green (CTMH), navy, White (PTI)
Other:  Decorative Tiles cuttlebug embossing folder, Quatrefoil cover plate (PTI), Heart die (PTI), Block Letter dies (PTI), Banner (spellbinders), rhinestones (kaisercraft)

More Glitter Tape

So my obsession with glitter tape continues:)  I'm not apologizing for it one bit.  I love this stuff.  So many gorgeous colors to choose from too.

This is for the latest CAS(E) this Sketch challenge and CAS-ual Fridays Birthday Bash Challenge

  

This is such a great sketch.  It's so versatile.  I cannot wait to see all the beautiful cards that people make for this challenge.

Not much to explain here.  I masked off the edges of the card base and stamped the background image.  I then cut several strips of glitter tape and made little banners.  Finished with a big sentiment and some rhinestone gems.





 
 All supplies from Papertrey Ink unless stated.

Stamps:   Background Basics: Retro, Stylish Sentiments: Birthday
Paper:   White
Ink:  tuxedo black (memento)
Other: lots of glitter tape (american crafts), rhinestones

For Your Inspiration #44

I don't know where time goes when it flies by, but I wish it would slow down just a bit.  How can it already be time for the next For Your Inspiration Challenge?  I swear these challenges always sneak up on me.

I love the photo inspiration this week!

I used my new favorite thing again on this card -- glitter tape.  I just love working with these tapes.  So easy and fun.  For this card, I stuck strips of gold and orange on a piece of card stock and die cut the word birthday.  Love the result.

To mimic the clouds I cut the front flap with a border die.  I chose to add a little more visual interest to the base with the sheet music impression plate then finished it off with some twine.

I hope you play along with us at FYI.  You have until Wednesday, May 1 to link up your creation based on the photo above.

I'm also entering this into CASology #40: WORD challenge.

 
 All supplies from Papertrey Ink unless stated.

Stamps:  Wonderful Words: Birthday
Paper:  white, black
Ink:  tuxedo black (memento)
Other: Edgers #3 border die, Wonderful Words: Birthday die, Sheet Music IP, glitter tape (american crafts), twine (twinery)

Tall & Thin

Here's a tall and thin one layer card for this week's OLW challenge on Heather Telford's blog.

I colored the image using Distress Markers and a water brush on watercolor paper.  I love the look of these  markers and they are so easy to use.

I'm not a fan of coloring on my cards, but that's probably just because I'm not very good at it and it takes more time.  However, I've been playing with these markers and I'm actually enjoying it.  I'm just keeping the coloring real simple.

The stems on the right show how I quickly colored the flowers before blending with a water brush.  This I can do!

Here's the back of my card which I stamped with the mini gladiolus image (from Year of Flowers Collection) along with the markers that I used.

I'm also entering this into the Simon Says Stamp challenge: April Showers / Spring Flowers

  
 All supplies from Papertrey Ink unless stated.

Stamps:   Year of Flowers: Gladiolus, Think Big Favorites #7, Year of Flowers Collection
Paper:  Watercolor Cold Press (strathmore)
Ink:  Archival Jet Black (ranger)
Other: distress markers, water brush (ranger)

All that Glitters

TGIF!!!  Happy Friday all.  I spent all day yesterday cleaning up my office / craft room and it's still not completely done.  I really let it go too long.  On the bright side, I actually managed to put together a few cards from the scraps and partially done pieces I had lying around.

Today's card uses some of those scraps.  I had the card base and KaiserCraft patterned paper cut (using Edgers #3 die from Papertrey) and sitting on my desk for a few months.  I'm hanging my head in shame.  Yesterday I glued them together and stuck the coral colored strip, also a scrap, on the bottom of the base.  That's as far as I got with it.

When I saw today's CAS-ual Friday's challenge to use something with glitter I knew how I wanted to finish the card.  I ran a piece of copper glitter tape over the patterned paper and stamped a matching peony from Papertrey's Pretty Peonies.  I finished it off with a wedding sentiment stamped in Dark Chocolate.

Here's another shot that shows the glitter I colored on the flower using my Clearstar Gelly Roll pen:

Playing along with CAS-ual Fridays:

and Simon Says Stamp:

April showers / Spring flowers

Have a fantastic weekend!





 
 All supplies from Papertrey Ink unless stated.

Stamps:  Pretty Peonies, Enjoy the Ride
Paper: white, Groovy Guava (SU), Kaisercraft Lush pp
Ink:  Dark Chocolate, Sweet Blush, Garden Green (CTMH), Certainly Celery & Groovy Guava (SU)
Other:  Edgers #3 border die, glitter tape (American Crafts), Copic marker R32

FYI 43, Retro Sketches 57 & Simon Says BD

Happy Thursday once again!  It's time for the next For Your Inspiration challenge.  As always, you have two weeks to play along and create a project based on our inspiration photo.  Just link your card or other project up at the FYI blog.

Here is the photo for the current challenge.  Isn't is beautiful?  Anyone know where this is?  I'd love to know.

You can see that I took the colors and textures from the photo to create my card.  I used two different embossing folders from the Decorative Tile Set.  The one I cut up into panels was inked up using Royal Velvet, Sweet Blush and Lemon Tart inks to mimic the colors of the sky.

I used the current sketch from the retro sketches challenge for my layout.

I'm also entering this into the Simon Says Stamp Birthday challenge.

Blessings,



   
All supplies from Papertrey Ink unless stated.

Stamps:  Wonderful Words: Birthday
Paper:   Kraft, white
Ink:  Royal Velvet, Sweet Blush, Lemon Tart
Other:  Wonderful Words: Birthday die, Decorative Tile Set embossing folders (cuttlebug)